Colorful Square Blanket Knitting Pattern is a Great Stash Buster

If there’s a knit equivalent to the granny square, it might be something like the colorful squares in the Squared Blanket and Pillow designed by Hope Vickman for Knit Picks.

These squares are worked from the center out and joined with a three-needle bind off. In the pattern the amount of color gradually decreases as you work across the blanket, but you could also make the squares all the same.

And while the pattern shows the same colors used throughout you could also make this a stash busting project, making each square with different colors or doing stripes of squares across the blanket.

It calls for worsted weight yarn and is written as a pillow as well as a baby blanket and throw.

Grab the pattern (alone or as part of an ebook of modular blanket knitting patterns) from Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks.]

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Throughout the saga of the closing of Joann, I’ve been wondering what would happen to CreativeBug, the subscription-based online craft learning platform that Joann acquired in 2017.

Golden Peak Media has announced its acquisition of the company in a media release.

Golden Peak is “one of the largest media and education companies serving art and craft enthusiasts in the United States,” according the release, and includes in its portfolio brands like Interweave, Sew Daily, and nine print magazines including Love of Quilting and Interweave Knits. They have daily newsletters, magazines, digital patterns, on-demand classes and host live events.

David Saabye, CEO of Golden Peak, calls the purchase a “very natural fit” supporting crafters in their lifelong learning journeys.

CreativeBug general manager Liana Allday will stay on and the company will retain its headquarters in Berkeley, Calif.

Abby Glassenberg of the Craft Industry Alliance collected reactions from some CreativeBug instructors and others with a history at the company, and heard lots of optimism about the news. Ursula Morgan, who was CEO of CreativeBug when the company was acquired by Joann, said Golden Peak is a “perfect home” for CreativeBug as they’re getting an owner that “deeply understands the craft consumer.”

I, too, am relieved to see that this platform will be able to continue. I’ve been a subscriber for years and I love that it has solid instruction in a wide range of crafts (including knitting, of course!) and is always adding new content to keep the platform interesting. It’s also a great service that CreativeBug is available to many for free through their local libraries, so be sure to check on that where you live if you don’t already subscribe.

This feels like the last piece of the puzzle in the story of Joann that’s going on all year, along with the announcement that Michaels had purchased Joann’s intellectual property so its private label brands can live on, but of course I’ll keep watching to see if there’s more to come.

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